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Month: September 2014

by Dorothy Gebert • September 18, 2014 • Comments Off on Restored to bookish glory

In the mid 1990s, the Multnomah County Central Library in Portland, Oregon began to experience serious structural issues and subsequently underwent extensive renovations. With a complete overhaul of the structure, both inside and out, the 1913 Georgian Revival building was restored…

by Dorothy Gebert • September 16, 2014 • Comments Off on Teamaker central

When I was in Portland, Oregon, Gregory and I stopped in at the headquarters of Steven Smith Teamaker. Smith is the guru behind two major brands of tea: Tazo and Stash. After those two businesses were acquired by major corporations, he opened…

by Dorothy Gebert • September 15, 2014 • Comments Off on Benson bubblers keep on burbling

Drinking fountains used to be everywhere – in schools, libraries, stores, and even on the street – but they seem to have disappeared with the onset of public hygiene concerns and bottled water. Not in downtown Portland, Oregon! Here, I was…

Lawrence Halprin was a West Coast landscape architect who developed a radical strategy in the 1960s: why not design urban spaces, and especially water features, for public interaction? At a time when decorative fountains were for viewing and not for playing…

by Dorothy Gebert • September 13, 2014 • Comments Off on Fountain town

Portland, Oregon is a city filled with fountains. Since the region is blessed with an abundant water supply, fountains are everywhere – in parks, in squares, on street corners, in the middle of avenues, at the entrance of buildings, under highways. You can’t walk around…

by Dorothy Gebert • September 11, 2014 • Comments Off on Library as work of art

Seattle Central Library is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year and is very different from any library I have visited on my travels. Although there was a lot of public input, the design is mostly the work of Dutch architect Rem…

by Dorothy Gebert • September 10, 2014 • Comments Off on Scenes from Pike Place Market

More of a neighbourhood than a building, Pike Place Market in Seattle, Washington is the home of the first Starbucks store, the flying fish of Pike Place Fish Co., and a variety of merchants, craftspeople, and eateries, all in view…

by Dorothy Gebert • September 4, 2014 • Comments Off on The Shakespeare Globe experience

“All the world’s a stage,” but I think the best one has to be at the re-constructed Globe Theatre on the south bank of the Thames River in London, England. The Globe experience re-born Erected near where the original 1599 Globe…

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It’s not often one has the opportunity to see rare documents. So it was wonderful for me to be able to peruse original copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio and the Declaration of Independence, which were on display at the Dallas…